by R. W. Peake
“Hurry up you lazy bastards,” I muttered as I peered to my right, barely making out the dark blob of movement that signaled the other Legions hurrying into line.
“Quiet Pullus,” hissed Rufio from just behind me, and I started a bit, not realizing that I had said anything out loud.
Finally, a messenger on horseback came galloping across our front to find Labienus, who was standing with the first line further down the formation. Without being told anything, we came to our feet, hoisted our weapons and prepared to advance.
The order was not long in coming, and we began the approach. There was a line of trees across our path of march that, while performing the service of screening us from the sight of Helvetii sentries, was now an obstacle to be negotiated in the semi-darkness as we moved through. Perhaps even worse than the possibility of tripping was the fact that it is practically impossible to keep a large group of men in any type of alignment while moving through such terrain, since being in alignment during an attack of this nature is absolutely essential. Because of this, after we broke through the line of trees, we would have to halt to reorder the lines, taking even more out of the element of surprise than the dawn would. Once I heard the racket we made as we entered the woods, with men tripping over roots and banging into trees, all worries about alignment fled from my head instantly; there was no way that they could not hear us coming, so it would be a miracle if we even got a chance to get properly aligned. Seeing a patch of light ahead that signaled the end of the small forest as we drew closer, I felt the familiar knot in my stomach tighten, fully expecting that the instant we burst through the trees we would be met by a horde of Helvetian warriors alerted by our clumsiness and now waiting for us like butchers wait on lambs brought to the slaughter. Glancing over, even in the gloom I could see Scribonius’ face tight with worry, and he met my own for a moment before shrugging then looking away, his expression communicating everything either of us needed to know. He was right; nothing could be done about it now, we just would have to make the best of it no matter what the circumstances. Usually, Legionaries do not like being trapped in places like forests; our style of fighting is not suitable for areas where we are confined in such ways, but this was one time that none of us looked forward to exiting what we now regarded as the safety of the trees, convinced that now that the dawn had arrived, coupled with the noise we were making, we were going to meet trouble.
By the time we inevitably burst out of the woods, the dawn was now fully upon us, but even if we had not been given the order to halt so that we could dress the lines, we probably would have staggered to a stop anyway at the sight that greeted us. Although it was not a battle line of Helvetian warriors like we expected, it was not much better; it was the largest camp any of us had ever seen. As far as the eye could see there were clusters of wagons, each cluster grouped together to form some sort of barrier, except as we were to learn, the Helvetians did not sleep within their protection, however meager. They chose instead to sleep on the ground, huddled together in groups around fires, with only the meanest shelters of skins lain over poles above them to provide protection from the elements. The fires and the smoke from them, as the people designated to restart them in the morning had begun stoking their particular fire, spread so far along the bank of the river that it was impossible to estimate just how large the camp was. Perhaps even more disturbing was not the camp on this side of the river, but the one on the other side, no more than two hundred paces away on the opposite bank.
“By Dis, I think we’re in trouble,” I heard Calienus gasp, and it was only when I turned in his direction and saw he that was not looking at the scene before us, instead following his gaze that I saw what had caused such a reaction. The camp on the other side was a camp in name only; in area it was a city the size of Corduba at the least.
“There must be a million of ‘em,” this was from Scribonius, who was not one to normally be so flustered by such things, but then, none of us had ever seen anything like this.
In the moment I took to gaze across the river, I saw a single bridge made of two lines of boats side by side with rough-hewn planks laid across, stretched across the water, allowing perhaps two wagons at a time to cross. This sight at least explained why they had not yet all made it over the river, but that bridge posed a serious problem for us, because it enabled the Helvetians on the other side to come to the aid of their fellow tribesmen. And since we were closest to the river, it also meant that we would bear the brunt of the attack. In the moment it took for all of this to sink in on me, my friends saw the same thing and reached the same conclusion.
“We are all going to die,” Rufio said, not bitterly, but as a simple statement of fact.
We should have had more faith in Caesar. Anticipating such a condition, Caesar had expressly put us on the side where he expected the most problem. However, he gave Labienus orders for us that were slightly different from the other two Legions. Once the order to advance sounded, instead of moving on the camp, we were instead led straight to the bridge, forming a box formation with the First and Second Cohorts facing the bridge and the opposite bank, while the Third formed on one side of the bridge and the Fourth on the other. Behind each of our Cohorts was another in support, forming a box two Cohorts deep. Men were designated from both of the Cohorts facing the bridge to gather one javelin apiece from the other Cohorts and bring them to us to use for covering fire, while the two spare Cohorts were given orders to gather combustibles to fire the bridge. Meanwhile, the other two Legions were to assault the camp, sparing no one.
To this day, it is a mystery to me how this all worked out as well as it did; despite the fact that the sun had already started to rise, and the noise we made crashing about in the woods, we still seemed to achieve complete surprise. Afterwards, the men from the other Legions relayed to us how a large number of the people they killed were still lying in their makeshift beds as our men went sweeping through the camp. I can only surmise that the idea of us marching through the night and appearing like some sort of numens out of the dawn was so preposterous that the Helvetii never recovered from the shock of being wrong. The Helvetians on the other side were little better; it took them a full sixth part of a watch before a force of a size large enough to threaten us was gathered to try to storm the bridge, but by that time it was too late. Despite the futility, they valiantly made several attempts to get across, even after the fire was lit and went sweeping across the river towards them. For our part, neither the First nor Second Cohorts even pulled our sword, instead wearing our arms out throwing our javelins at anyone who got close enough. The closest the Helvetians on the other side of the river came to getting across was when a small force of horsemen ignored the bridge to swim across. Even they were cut down before they made it to the opposite bank, their horses looking more like porcupines, so full of shafts were they, floating downstream or sinking out of sight, along with their riders. I could hear the sounds of the “battle” if it could be called that, behind me, yet I refused to look around, telling myself that my duty lay in front. The truth was that I heard the mingled screams of women being killed, or worse, accompanied by the shrieks of terror from children and the cries of babies as they were put to death, making it much more than duty that kept my eyes averted. It is the part of soldiering that I hated, and still hate to this day, and as much of it as I have done myself, I have never taken the joy in it that some of my comrades have.
The affair was over in two thirds of a watch, with barely a loss to us, aside from some minor wounds. The bridge went up in flames, leaving the Helvetians on the other side shaking their fists at us, screaming imprecations in their language that we needed no translator to understand. Once it became apparent there was nothing they could do for their fellow tribespeople, they packed up their camp and made preparations to begin the march anew. On our side of the river, once I did finally turn to look, it was a scene of staggering devastation. Bodies lay in large heaps, some of them horribly mutilated, having been cut to piec
es fighting, some with a single wound to the throat or chest. Thousands upon thousands of them; men, women, young children, teenagers my age, babies still in swaddling clothes, old crones who gaped with toothless mouths open to the sky, their eyes as wide as their maws, staring in that shocked expression that is common to people who die suddenly. That noxious stench of blood and death was already clearly palpable, and by the end of the day was so overpowering that we began to wear our scarves around our lower face to keep out the foul humors in the air, except it did not help much. The 8th and 9th were swarming over the field, looting the wagons and finishing off the wounded. From underneath piles of bodies people would be found who had escaped harm, and these were rounded up under guard to be sold into slavery, though not before the women among them were sampled by the soldiers who found them. Despite not taking part in the assault on the camp, we were still allotted a section and turned loose to loot it, Vibius and me pairing up as always. It is in times like these that all the camaraderie and good feelings one holds for fellow Legionaries is put under the most severe test; greed has a way of doing that. The customary method is for a tent section to lay claim to one particular house, or wagon in this case, and the others are supposed to respect that, especially this time since there were plenty of wagons to go around. However, it was a matter of who claimed it first, and invariably, there would be two or more groups who would spot an unmolested wagon simultaneously then make claim to it. This is where the Centurions come in, and why they always get a larger share of the spoils from each of us, along with the first pick of the most prized booty. They are the judge and jury of the system and whatever they say is law, which we accepted. Where things get complicated is when the dispute is between Centuries, or even worse, Cohorts, and then seniority is often used, although this is not universally accepted. Worst of all is when it is between Legions, and that is when matters can get violent; I have seen men killed in such disputes, squabbling over a bolt of silk, or in one case, a copper bracelet that perhaps cost a sesterce. That is also when things take a more official turn, with the Centurions involved in the dispute taking their complaints to their respective Tribunes, who then meet and work things out and come to a fair settlement. Of course, that is the theory, but like all things in our system, it comes down to who is willing to give the biggest share of the spoils to the man adjudicating the dispute. Perhaps it is not the most just system, but it works.
After the looting, we turned back to more practical matters, the most pressing being the construction of a new bridge and the burying of the bodies. We hoped that we were going to be given the task of building the bridge, but it was our turn for Fortuna to dump on us when the 10th was assigned the job of digging a mass burial pit. There were more bodies to bury than we had ever experienced before, and while the idea of digging one huge pit was discussed, it was almost immediately discarded as being impractical. Instead, each Cohort was assigned to dig a pit, given a section of the battlefield to clear, and we worked well into the night completing the task. Once we were done we marched back, filthy and exhausted, to the camp built perhaps a mile away from the site and tried to get as much sleep as we could. Meanwhile, the 9th was charged with building another bridge. Although burning the first one had been a practical necessity, it also meant that the materials previously readily available for its construction were destroyed, so the 9th was sent farther upriver to scour the area for more boats. Caesar deemed this the most expeditious manner of getting across, as opposed to building a proper bridge. The other Legions were sent for and would arrive by midday the next day, while hopefully the 9th would find what they needed to help us get across the river. The 8th had constructed the camp we were now occupying, where most of us immediately dropped to our cots, not bothering to take off our armor or eating anything, and dropped off to sleep immediately.
The next day saw the 9th successful in finding the number of boats needed to bridge the Aras although it was going to be narrower than what the Helvetii built. We would find out that this was a huge blow to the Helvetii, not as much by the construction of the bridge itself, but in the damage done to their morale, because it took them 20 days to build the bridge we destroyed, yet it took Caesar only one before we were tramping across in pursuit of the Helvetii. I can only imagine the kind of consternation this caused when they learned this, and as I have since come to understand, one can never underestimate the importance of morale in waging war. By the middle of the day, the other Legions Caesar had sent for reached the crossing, just in time to see the last of our group crossing the bridge, whereupon they joined the tail end of the column, almost as if planned that way, and perhaps it was. A Cohort was left behind to guard the bridge, along with firing the debris left over from the battle the day before, which had been piled into a huge pyre to be set alight. The smoke column that it produced was visible to us the rest of the day as we moved in pursuit of the Helvetii. For their part, they turned back to the north, seeking a low pass through the mountains that barred their way west, enabling us to quickly come within striking distance, whereupon they sent a deputation to Caesar, led by a chief named Divico who once led a campaign against Cassius, a relative of that bastard who called himself one of “The Liberators.” The Helvetii were severely shaken by the easy slaughter of a quarter of their number; once the final count of bodies was finished it numbered almost 100,000 people we buried back at the river. Divico begged Caesar to stop his pursuit of the Helvetii, telling him that they only wanted new lands to settle and would go wherever Caesar wished and do what he asked. Caesar told Divico that the Helvetii must make reparations to those tribes whose lands through which they had already passed and devastated, along with giving up a number of hostages, a perfectly reasonable request given all that occurred. Apparently the old boy did not see it that way and got a bit huffy about it, saying something about how the Helvetii never gave hostages, they took them. Whatever took place, the talks were not successful, so the Helvetii began to march to the north again, this time with an army of six Legions following them.
This was the pattern of almost two full weeks, with the army following the Helvetii procession about five or six miles behind them as they plodded north along the Aras. About the fifth day of the first week, they turned away from the Aras to head west for a pass through the low mountains. The terrain got rougher, yet more importantly their route took us farther away from our supply line, which was the river itself. Caesar had ordered the Aedui to supply us with grain by way of boats sent from their towns along the river, and the farther we marched away from that, the longer our supply line grew. Perhaps it was this that persuaded Dumnorix, one of the chiefs of the Aedui, that it would be more politic of him to withhold the grain from us, a fact that soon became apparent even to us in the ranks. It was made known to Caesar even earlier, who summoned Diviciacus and Liscus, both of them also high officials in the Aedui tribe, to demand an explanation. Diviciacus was a Druid, something called a Vergobret, and previously Caesar had been friendly with Diviciacus, who reciprocated the friendship. Diviciacus more importantly was also Dumnorix’s brother, and it was this relationship that Caesar hoped to prevail upon to convince Dumnorix that holding back our food was going to be a bad idea for everyone involved. While this negotiation was going on, Caesar also recruited more cavalry from the surrounding tribes and even from across the Rhenus, fearsome looking men who wore trousers and cultivated long flowing mustaches, though they were reputed to be great horsemen. I will admit they were ready enough for a fight, but they possessed very little discipline. The squadrons now had swelled so that there were some 4,000 horsemen, and aside from the normal outriders and scouts who rode in small groups, they were kept in one body. It was this unit that had the job of keeping in visual contact with the Helvetii column, while the rest of us marched behind. For the first couple of days the marches were very tense affairs, as we were constantly on guard and ready to be summoned into battle. However, it soon became clear that neither the Helvetii nor Caesar had any desire to tangle
just yet, a fact that we spent much time in the evening speculating about. After about a week of this we settled into a monotonous routine of marching, then stopping and waiting, then marching again, our pace of travel being much faster than the Helvetii, and Caesar wanting to keep a buffer of several miles between us. It was dreadfully boring, causing the grumbling around the campfire to become more pronounced. One night, as we were talking about it, Calienus said something that finally made some sense to us.
